


Exhaustion

by Agib



Series: Whumptober 2020 [14]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Break Up, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Eventual Happy Ending, I promise, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Mental Anguish, Mutual Pining, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sad with a Happy Ending
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:34:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27171838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Agib/pseuds/Agib
Summary: “I love you,” Derek says honestly.They had said it before, quietly in the morning light after a night of closeness nothing and nobody could compare to. Only a few times, because Spencer needs to hear these things often, Derek knows.“You too,” Spencer answers after a long silence.He does not say the three words.Derek worries.
Relationships: (Later on) - Relationship, Derek Morgan/Spencer Reid, Ethan/Spencer Reid, Spencer Reid & The BAU Team
Series: Whumptober 2020 [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1945771
Comments: 6
Kudos: 75
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Exhaustion

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr is [@ag-ib](https://ag-ib.tumblr.com/)

He came home bruised, and he came home frailer than usual. Like a poorly timed gust of wind would barrel him over.

He has a limp now, on his left foot. The doctors say it won’t be permanent, but Spencer reads his medical report in the quiet of their kitchen later that night.

Plantar fascial rupture. Lisfranc injury, broken bones, shattered sesamoid, and torn ligaments.

And that was just his left foot.

He doesn’t talk about the shake in both his hands, or the bruising and swelling across his delicate face. He doesn’t read a lot of things from his medical examination. Not the bloodwork, or the torso area, or about his concussion, though Derek says it’s non-negotiable. He needs to be informed on the severity of his head trauma.

Spencer showers - a pleasure he had not been granted for over forty-eight hours - and the bathroom door stays locked, unlike usual.

If it had been Derek’s decision, he would have been in there with him. Trailing gentle fingertips over scabs and bruises, kissing at lingering scars and comforting above everything else.

He understands that Spencer needs space, anyone would after the ordeal he’s been through, but he still worries. Spencer is an introvert at heart, when he’s anything but content, he naturally draws into himself. Derek would be lying if he said he didn’t do the same.

So, when Spencer spends upwards of half an hour locked in the bathroom and seems disconnected when he exits, he does not press him for answers or further communication, he simply follows him to bed without a word.

Spencer is cold despite the warm dampness of his freshly washed hair that smells of cinnamon when he pulls him against his chest, so their limbs entangle from bruised foot to swollen temple.

“You need the heater?” He whispers into the silence of their shared bedroom, tucking closer still.

“Hm?”

Derek repeats himself, slightly louder this time, enough for Clooney’s ear to twitch from where he’s curled at the dip of Derek’s knees.

“No,” Spencer mumbles. He does not tell his lover that it would feel too much like the fire Tobias had lit them before Raphael seared fish guts across a skillet to ward off his devilish nature. He merely stays still so Derek can lull himself into false security and believe that everything can truly be okay now that he is home, ‘safe.’

\----

Half an hour into the time that seeps by slowly after Derek stirs in his sleep, Spencer lifts one of his heavy limbs to slip from their shared bed.

His footfalls are uneven, and they make Clooney snuff unhappily as he shuffles about the room with winces and quiet inhales of breath.

He is exhausted, yes, but there is too much circling his mind like an empty drain. Too many things he knows will crawl into the depths of his dreams and twist them into nightmares, even with Derek pressed against his side like an overprotective furnace.

_ This will be over quickly if you just confess your sins. _

_ I’m not a devil, I'm  _ not  _ a devil. I’m a man - _

_ Confess. _

He wonders how long he will limp for, and he wonders how much longer his mandatory week-long recovery will be stretched out for. He is not stupid, he knows as much as he lied to Hotch, the man won’t let him back into the office let alone the field until he’s acting normal again, or at least seems to be.

The mirror tells him he won’t be looking normal for days to come, assuming he sleeps eventually, which he does not plan to do until he can guarantee the Dilaudid won’t continue bringing him memories painted black with despair.

The smooth patches of skin beneath his eyes have always been stained grey, but now he can no longer tell the difference between the mottled bruising from Hankel’s fists and the mark of sleep-deprivation.

His cheek is still swollen, and when he prods at it all he can remember is the feeling of the red blinking light of the camera, mocking him, jeering as he choked on spittle and let his eyes roll back into his skull after something as small as a beating. 

He would not describe his past forty-eight hours as torture if you asked. He knew the whipping of the soles of his feet was only a precaution, a guise to force him to raise to the bait of confession. The beatings had been interrogation tactics, and the recordings were for Charles’ delusions of helping others learn.

The Russian roulette with his life was another intimidation technique, and the Dilaudid… it was Tobias shining through Raphael and Charles’ patterns of aggression and violence, a feeble attempt to stop the pain.

As much as Spencer hated to admit it, the attempt had worked. While he had relived some of his worst memories of his family, he had also stopped feeling the torment, the brutality of one man’s words and another’s fist.

He does not blame Tobias for needing this to survive. He does, however, blame himself.

His life had never been the easiest, and Derek had validated the understanding Spencer had of his own detriments. 

He did not understand a lot of things that had been horrible in his life until he began to open up to Derek, both as a friend and as a lover.

Derek had been horrified upon realising why he was so afraid of zip ties and footballers, or blindfolds and first kisses. He was abhorred when Spencer explained the small, seemingly insignificant scars he bore from childhood.

Too many times had he offhandedly mentioned something and found himself met with a worried gaze from his boyfriend.

_ Spence, pretty boy, that’s not normal - not okay. _

_ Baby, do you want to talk about this? _

_ When was this? _

_ How did this happen? _

_ Why didn’t you tell me about this? _

He was not stupid enough to think he had a normal childhood, but it hadn’t been all bad.

He had a mother who loved him, a father for some years, a friend from early high school through to college who drifted after he backed out of the academy to pursue jazz. Sure, his mother was unstable, but her worst days - when she forgot his name or lashed out with her hands - were rare enough as he grew up, only when he reached fourteen did they become more common than her good days.

He wasn’t targeted with specifically organised attacks like the goalpost incident very often, he suffered more from the excessive exclusion and minor acts of aggression in the halls between periods.

A lot of things could have been worse. His mother was only violent on the odd occasion, and it was usually his own fault for pushing her to get out of bed or eat the food he’d tried to make with his clumsy, twelve-year-old kitchen skills. His father could have stopped paying mortgage on their home. Gary Michaels could have reached him before Lou Jenkin’s got to him with the baseball bat. He could have been severely injured from pranks and small attacks by seniors at school.

He doesn’t think his life had been overtly awful. Everything had happened for a reason, his mother once said. He isn’t entirely sure he believes that.

Not when Derek had suffered so greatly during Hankel’s case. It was not fair to put him through this all, not by a long shot.

\----

Derek wakes up with one hand spread across the cold, unoccupied bed sheets where Spencer should be.

He can hear the gurgling of their coffee pot from the kitchen and he relaxes marginally.

Somehow, he expected this. Spencer has never slept well after bad cases, and he thinks Hankel’s case could not simply be described as bad.

It was torture, pure and undivided trauma, for not only Spencer but the team too.

He finds Spencer sitting outside on the deck, Clooney ruffling about at his feet, looking for scraps when all Spencer has in his hands is a mug of coffee.

His eyes are dark, cheeks somehow more hollowed than Derek remembers.

“Hey,” he greets, watching the way Spencer flinches at the sudden voice. “Sorry.”

He seats himself beside the kid, watching him stare listlessly out at the garden, his eyes trailing after Clooney who runs about, chasing birds he’ll never be able to catch.

“Did you sleep at all?” He asks seriously.

Spencer’s hair is mussed up at the front, a tell-tale sign that he’s been up for at least an hour, running his hands through his loose curls with worry or stress.

“Not really,” Spencer croaks. His voice is damaged from misuse. Or perhaps, Derek considers, from all the screaming and crying he’d done.

“You should get a couple hours, I’ll be home if you need me,” he murmurs, pulling Spencer into his side and pressing his lips gently against his butterfly bandaged temple.

“You have work,” Spencer points out.

“I’m taking a week,” Derek says. “Paperwork from home.”

Spencer’s eyes flash with  _ something _ , and Derek hopes its gratefulness.

“Okay,” he says finally. There’s something about his tone of voice and the sadness pressing down upon his expressions. He seems too much like a bird that’s been trodden on. 

Derek reaches his hand out, waiting patiently.

Spencer accepts his fingers reluctantly, letting them curl around his palm and pull him close.

“I’m sorry,” Derek whispers into the wind.

“What for?” Spencer responds, voice just as gentle.

“Everything,” he sighs. “Not finding you sooner, letting you out on the witness questioning in the first place, leaving you to save yourself.”

“You didn’t. It’s not your fault.”

His voice is soft and sweet, as though it pains him more to hear Derek saying this then the memory of what had happened will.

“I love you,” Derek says honestly.

They had said it before, quietly in the morning light after a night of closeness nothing and nobody could compare to. Only a few times, because Spencer needs to hear these things often, Derek knows.

“You too,” Spencer answers after a long silence.

He does not say the three words.

Derek worries.

\----

Hotch extends the week off for Spencer, claiming the apparent lack of sleep doesn’t imply he’s ‘faring well.’

Spencer convinces Derek to let him help consult on some paperwork he brings home on occasion, but it’s obvious he’s slipping. He’s tired and haggard, still limping, perpetual curled in on himself like he’s waiting for a hit that will  _ never  _ come.

On top of everything else, the weight loss hasn’t stopped, and it’s far more obvious now, Derek is certain it’s no longer the placebo of Spencer going two days with only water. They fight about it. Spencer says he’s nauseous and Derek tells him he can keep soup down at the very least.

Spencer continues keeping the bathroom door locked wherever he’s in there. He won’t even let Derek in to brush his teeth if he’s showering anymore.

He won’t let Derek hold him anymore, nor does he lean in for unprompted kisses. He’s drifting away and Derek doesn’t want to force him back to himself but it’s becoming unbearable to see the kid suffering in silence so obviously.

“You aren’t sleeping,” he says one evening. Spencer is tucked away into his single armchair - one of the only pieces of furniture they had kept from his old apartment. “I can tell,” Derek continues.

Spencer looks up, blinks owlishly.

“No,” he agrees. “Maybe three hours on average.”

Derek shifts from where he sits on the three-seater, moves down a cushion until his elbow brushes the edge of Spencer’s seat.

“What’s going on in that head of yours?”

Spencer blinks again, like a deer in headlights. He closes his eyes and seems to lean into where Derek has combed his fingers delicately across the back of his wrist before opening them and arching away again.

“I uh - I don’t… I’m not sure,” he murmurs. “I have - I’ve been having these…  _ dreams _ .”

“About Hankel?” He asks cautiously. There’s a gleam in Spencer’s eyes that seems suspiciously wet.

“Y - ‘eah,” he chokes out.

Derek wraps his fingers around his hand and squeezes.

“Stay with me tonight?” He asks softly.

He wakes up to a cold bed again.

Spencer starts sleeping on the couch.

Derek worries.

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr is [@ag-ib](https://ag-ib.tumblr.com/)
> 
> my heart goes <3<3<3 when anyone sends asks, so please don't hesitate!


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